The most impressive things Tesla's cars can do in Autopilot

The most impressive things Tesla's cars can do in Autopilot

While driving with Autopilot activated, a Tesla vehicle can regulate its speed, change lanes, and park without driver assistance.

Tesla customers can buy the Autopilot feature for $5,000.

Tesla's Autopilot feature has become the subject of controversy after a Model S crashed into a fire truck on January 22 while possibly using the feature. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will investigate the incident.

While Tesla's Autopilot system is not supposed to replace a human driver yet, it can help drivers navigate highways and parking lots, and the company says every vehicle currently being produced in its factory has the hardware for complete, autonomous driving that could be activated when the necessary software and government regulations come into place.

Here's what Tesla's Autopilot feature can do now, and what it might be able to do in the future:

Tesla introduced its Autopilot feature in 2015. It gives its cars the ability to drive autonomously in some situations. Last year, the company rolled out new hardware on all of its vehicles. The new hardware suite enables the latest iteration of the driving system, which is called Enhanced Autopilot.

Tesla

Tesla cars made since October 2016 come with eight cameras that have a complete, 360-degree range of vision around the car. Each of the cameras can see up to 250 meters away.

Tesla

Twelve ultrasonic sensors make sure the car can recognize and avoid both hard and soft objects.

Tesla

A radar system helps the car see through fog, heavy rain, dust, or a car in front of it.

All new Tesla cars have the necessary hardware for Enhanced Autopilot, but customers have to pay to turn the semi-autonomous system on. Enhanced Autopilot costs $5,000 at the time of purchase or a buyer can activate it later for $6,000.

Groupement ADAS is a Team of innovative companies with over 20 years experience in the field of technologies used in assistance driver systems (design, implementation and integration of ADAS in vehicles for safety features, driver assistance, partial delegation to the autonomous vehicle).